Why I Really Wish I’d Played Team Sports
A total non-athlete regrets many important lessons not learned
Closing my mind to team sports, or any sport for that matter, was one of my more insane decisions. Running around my local park (for the psychological health benefits) or bench pressing admittedly not the biggest weights (for the vanity of that ever-elusive six-pack) don’t really count.
I wasn’t very good at them, that was part of the problem. Those sections of my school reports were routinely less than stellar. “Niall needs to focus on improving his hand/eye coordination.” “Niall favors the warmth of the indoor badminton court to the frosted-over rugby pitch.”
So a glittering career in the school’s First XV was never on the cards. Nor, realistically, would there have been a place for me in the second division, or even (this is painful to admit) the third. There were plenty of boys who were extremely good at rugby and/or hockey and/or (come the summer months) cricket, and places at the top were in short supply.
But I missed out on so much: plotting and power struggles and learning how to lead a team, building the physical prowess of an action man, channeling the competitive camaraderie of dolphins, yelling at screens in sports bars, preparing myself for war.
